1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to security cases or housings for preventing merchandise (e.g., compact disks, audio tapes, video disks/tapes, cigarettes, toys, data recording media, jewelry, etc.) from being stolen.
2. Prior Art
Retail shops and rental shops of compact disks, cassette tapes, etc. use special holders for displaying the containers of compact disks, cassette tapes, etc. FIG. 7 shows one of such holders.
This holder is composed of a holder main body 90, a container receiving member 91 provided at the bottom of the holder main body 90, and a lock mechanism 92. The holder main body 90 has an open area 90a at the side thereof for receiving and releasing the container. The container receiving member 91 is movable in and out of the holder main body 90 and then becomes immovable when the lock mechanism 92 engages the container receiving member 91, so that the container cannot be taken out of the holder main body 90. When, as seen from FIG. 8, a magnet 93 having strong attraction power causes a pin 92a of the lock mechanism 92 to move downward in FIG. 8 against the spring force of a spring 92b of the lock mechanism 92, the pin 92a is disengaged from the container receiving member 91, thus allowing the container to be removed from the holder main body 90.
This type of holder customarily has a theft detection tag (not shown) attached on the inner surface of the rear plate of the holder main body 90. When one attempts to steal the container in a holder from a shop, the theft detection tag attached to the holder is detected when passing through the detection gate installed at the exit of the shop.
Therefore, before taking the desired recorded medium contained in the container out of the shop, a shop clerk at the counter before the detection gate must first release the lock mechanism 92 of the holder and take the container out of the holder.
However, the holder described above is disadvantaged in that if a person (other than a shop clerk) has a magnet with strong attraction power, this person can easily release the lock mechanism 92. Thus, thefts cannot be prevented effectively despite the use of the detection gate.